Body Count - Born Dead

Artwork - 6/10
Music - 7/10
Lyrics - 3/10

5.5/10 Overall

I added the Body Count albums on LaLa out of pure morbid curiosity. I liked the concept, a rapper branching out into a completley foreign genre.

Well, the first three songs upon my first listen, garbage.... I pressed the skip button within the first minute of each of them. Honestly, when anyone says the name of their act more then once on an album its really damn irritatting... I don't need to hear it over 50 times in one song... or in this case, make it the song. Look at the genius of the first track...

Quote :

Body Count!

Body muthaf*kin' Count!

(repeat)

And its over a min long, ARGH!

Masters of Revenge

The next song is more self indulgent crap... a band writing about themselves is not the problem here... Metallica did it with Whiplash, Megadeth with Rattlehead... but the word Bodycount is found in the song 16 times, its the entire chorus... SKIP

Killin' Floor

The third song.... another short annoying song... I diden't even last long enough to write anything meaningful about it. Blah

Necessary Evil

Now the fourth song I listened to all the way through. Good music! However, Ice T finds himself in the same trappings that keeps me away from most rap, the words N*igga and B*tch just pop out way too damn clear and irritate me... why does every rapper feel they need to say these words in all their songs? Its a real turn off... Otherwise, the lyrical content isn't so bad... I should expect him to sing about what he lives... but I find the word N*gga to be really cliched, annoying and hard to stomach.

Drive By

This song is garbage, I only got all the way through it because I was still writting the review for Necessary Evil.

Last Breath

This is a good song, a nice eerie intro (after 30 seconds of a cheesy scary movie noise), the riffing in this song is incredible! The lyrics aren't too bad either, hearing the word muthaf*ucka(er) is a bit a annoying, but doesn't kill the song for me.

Hey Joe

A song they recorded for a Jimi Hendrix tribute, the music is pulled off well... the vocals were a bit weak.

Shallow Graves
This song has a nice Megadeth type vibe to it. This is a good song, I really enjoyed it upon my first listen. The lyrics are pretty decent, a bit to anti-American... "Muthaf*ck your Red White and Blue"? That line was a uneccesarry.

Surviving The Grave

Holy crap, no swearing! Awesome. This is a nice doomy song, I liked it.

Who Are You?

The opening riff grabbed me by the face and drew me in, then there was a lead that pulled me in further, one of the best songs on the album, musicwise. Lyricwise, its a song with the typical "ghetto" problems rappers like to sing about... but it doesn't distract me from the song like the one I mentioned earlier did.

Street Lobotomy

"I love to smoke CRACK!" Well that had me laugh out loud when he said that line. I'm not sure if this song is trying to be ironic or obnoxious... I liked it, even if it was a bit silly. I could actually picture Billy Milano singing this one on an S.O.D. album.

Born Dead

Another song with rap lyric trappings, but thats to be expected. Starts out slow with him speaking the lyrics, then it gradually builds up speed and then drops off again. The news reporter dubs were cool. Its a pretty good song, nothing more... nothing less.


To sum up, well I don't know if this will stay in my collection... I hated four of the songs, but I have the skip button. The band was really good... I thi nk the weak link here was the man who created the project, Ice T... his vocals leave alot to be desired and his lyrics aren't really brilliant.

Hahaha, I've had "Born Dead" for a number of years now. It absolutely pales in comparison to the S/T debut (which featured the infamous "Cop Killer"), which in itself was a pretty dumb album, but at least the performances on the debut were a lot nastier sounding and better produced. "Born Dead," except for a few tracks, sounds like rejected demos than a proper album.

Although i still throw it on once in awhile to listen to the title track and "Surviving The Game"

Fat Freddy wrote:

Hahaha, I've had "Born Dead" for a number of years now. It absolutely pales in comparison to the S/T debut (which featured the infamous "Cop Killer"), which in itself was a pretty dumb album, but at least the performances on the debut were a lot nastier sounding and better produced. "Born Dead," except for a few tracks, sounds like rejected demos than a proper album.

Although i still throw it on once in awhile to listen to the title track and "Surviving The Game"

Yeah, I pretty much thought the same. I may get ahold of the rest.

I think Ice T should of never went metal. Just total crap. He saw a market for it when he saw the success of Anthrax and Faith No More.

This thread prompted me to dust off "Born Dead" for the first time in a while and bring it to work w/me to listen to today. Will post some thoughts once it's been spun.

Fat Freddy wrote:

This thread prompted me to dust off "Born Dead" for the first time in a while and bring it to work w/me

Me too.

I don't mind the fact that Body Count were born, I'd listen to them alot more than most of the so called Metal that has been produced over the past few years. The Debut is a solid CD, Sure there's a lot of cursing in the songs, so ? It wont turn me off. Kinda like some non-christians complaining about Christian Metal bands trying to shove God beliefs down peoples throats through songs, well listening to Stryper don't make me run to Mass and neither does listening to Body Count songs make me go out and call my friends mothers "Ho's" (well not to their faces anyway).

.

Born Dead is kinda ok. I have the S/T with Cop Killer (newer releases have the last 2 tracks replaced with Jello Biafra reading the 1st amendment).

The S/T is the only release they have that is worth while. Their bass player was in Iggy Pop's band on a couple releases as well and did some decent work on those if anyone is interested.

Body Count released a new album (their 4th I think) earlier this year (or perhaps late last year) called "Murder 4 Hire," haven't heard it though.

I understand that Ice-T and Ernie C. are the only surviving members of the original Body Count lineup. One guy died of Leukemia some time ago, another was killed in a drive by shooting and one other guy died from causes I can't remember off the top of my head. Somwhere along the line the name "Body Count" became very apropos for them!!

Never cared for Body Count or Ice T. I do like the song he did with Slayer on the Judgement Night soundtrack, though—which is a killer soundtrack, by the way.

Judgement Night is an excellent soundtrack. The collaborations are really interesting. Faith No More and the Boo-Ya Tribe is great, as is Dinosaur Jr. and Del the Funkee Homosapian.

And to keep it on topic if you do see Body Count's first album with Cop Killer cheap, get it as it goes for about $30 bucks on ebay.

Fat Freddy wrote:

This thread prompted me to dust off "Born Dead" for the first time in a while and bring it to work w/me to listen to today. Will post some thoughts once it's been spun.

I've been listening to BORN DEAD and Body Count's S/T debut on and off for the past few days, and as I stated earlier, I still greatly prefer the debut. BORN DEAD has a couple of highlights, but it's nowhere near as solid as the S/T.

It's funny though, how much difference a few years makes. When Body Count first came out and "Cop Killer" was getting all the attention, it was like the mid 80s PMRC hysteria all over again. They were considered Public Enemy Number One and were hyped as "The Most Dangerous Band in the World." Listening to that song (and the rest of the B.C. material) fifteen years after the fact, I gotta wonder what all the fuss was about, cuz the band were cartoonish at best.

By the way, does anyone else find it ironic as hell that Ice-T, the man who wrote "Cop Killer," now PLAYS a cop on the "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" TV show??

Being a big fan of BC since Violent Demise, Born Dead is a good album IMO.

Body Count = True Black Metal

The s/t Body Count Cd is a favorite of mine - it rocks pretty good. There's way too much cursing, but the musicianship is good, especially with Ernie C. laying down some real nice solos. It took me by surprise, but Ice-T has good energy throughout the CD.

Just one of those CD's that stuck with me.

And yes it is funny that the Cop Killer in the 90's has been playing a cop on TV for the last 7-8 years.

Only in America!

I just spinned this album today for the first time in over 14 years!

Funny music, not too good, but worth a listen out of curiosity.

I got to see Body Count on tour for the S/T album. That was one crazy show!!! The place was packed and the crowd was totally nuts!! One of the most violent shows I've been too.

nevermore wrote:

I got to see Body Count on tour for the S/T album. That was one crazy show!!! The place was packed and the crowd was totally nuts!! One of the most violent shows I've been too.

I had wanted to see Body Count live back then but never was able to. I remember seeing an advertisement for a B.C. show in New York when they were touring for that debut album, they were playing with Exodus and D.R.I. -- geez, betcha the club probably had to sweep up the teeth and eyeballs at the end of that show.

I have their self titled album on tape, and it has that infamous 'Cop Killer', like Freddy said, listening to that song now so many years later, it is hard to see what big deal is, since the song is so cartoonish.

The rest of the album is good but it is so damn silly I am sure it was meant to be a satire of the metal genre, 'Evil Dick' is still one of the funniest songs I have ever heard and maybe John Edwards and Tiger Woods can adopt this song as their personal anthems.

Fat Freddy wrote:

nevermore wrote:

I got to see Body Count on tour for the S/T album. That was one crazy show!!! The place was packed and the crowd was totally nuts!! One of the most violent shows I've been too.

I had wanted to see Body Count live back then but never was able to. I remember seeing an advertisement for a B.C. show in New York when they were touring for that debut album, they were playing with Exodus and D.R.I. -- geez, betcha the club probably had to sweep up the teeth and eyeballs at the end of that show.

Exodus and D.R.I. opened the show I saw. I bet the club swept up a few bodies as well as bodyparts.

Just saw this this today:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Hahaha, I've had "Born Dead" for a number of years now. It absolutely pales in comparison to the S/T debut (which featured the infamous "Cop Killer"), which in itself was a pretty dumb album, but at least the performances on the debut were a lot nastier sounding and better produced. "Born Dead," except for a few tracks, sounds like rejected demos than a proper album.

Although i still throw it on once in awhile to listen to the title track and "Surviving The Game"

The song called Surviving the Grave. I can understand the typo, as the movie Surviving the Game, released the same year as Born Dead, also starred Ice-T.

On an interesting note of Ice-T and movies he was in, Ice-T was also in a movie with Alyssa Milano called Body Count (also known as Below Utopia), which has nothing to do with the band Body Count he fronted. It's just a coincidence, but a very weird one.

Quote :

The song called Surviving the Grave. I can understand the typo, as the movie Surviving the Game, released the same year as Born Dead, also starred Ice-T.

Ummm...nope, the song is called "Surviving the Game." Lookie here, track number 9.

My mistake. I misread it as Surviving the Grave at the top of the thread.